Pedestrians
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Community Rallies Around Fisherman’s Wharf Public Realm Plan
After several years of planning, including intense negotiations between merchants, property owners and neighbors who didn't always see eye-to-eye, the San Francisco Planning Department unveiled a comprehensive draft plan last week to revitalize public space and pedestrian amenities around Fisherman's Wharf, the second most-visited tourist attraction in California behind
Disneyland. The plan details numerous deficiencies that degrade the pedestrian experience and proposes design guidelines for public and private investment to transform the district into a world-class waterfront.
June 15, 2010
Commentary: Sidewalk Sitting? No Way! Sidewalk Parking? Stay All Day!
One weighs 200 pounds or less, the other maybe two tons or more. One is involved in odd scuffles, the other in nearly 40,000 deaths nationwide each year. One is being targeted by the mayor and the press in San Francisco, the other sails under the radar.
June 10, 2010
Richmond Seeks Community Input on Bicycle and Pedestrian Plans
While San Francisco's battle to implement its Bicycle Plan has generated national press attention, cities like Richmond in the East Bay have been quietly developing bicycle and pedestrian plans, hoping to reduce high rates of injury collisions between pedestrians, cyclists, and motor vehicles.
May 14, 2010
Dreaming of Pedestrian Heaven on San Francisco’s Oldest Street
Could San Francisco's first and oldest thoroughfare become the city's first true pedestrianized street?
May 4, 2010
Making Streets for Walking: Dan Burden on Reforming Design Standards
One of the foundational documents in our country's history of
car-centric street design is what's known as the Green Book. These
engineering guidelines, which have been published in various editions by
the American Association
of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO) since the 1930s,
are only "green" if you're looking at the cover.
April 8, 2010
Tea Partying and Beanbagging on Shotwell
The citywide Stand Against Sit Lie campaign Saturday March 27 was a big success by all accounts. The website claims over 100 events took place on San Francisco sidewalks, and over 1000 people participated. That doesn’t sound overwhelming at first glance, but if you recall that this began as a brainstorm in a bar just a couple of weeks ago, and relied heavily on Facebook and personal networking, it is an impressive beginning.
March 29, 2010
Hairball Study Coughs Up Ideas, Memories
"You can't get there from here" is a joke phrase, but trying to travel through the Highway 101 freeway maze at Cesar Chavez/Potrero/Bayshore is no laughing matter. Four neighborhoods meet at the maze, known as the "hairball": Potrero Hill, Bayview, Bernal Heights, and the Mission. But moving from one to another without a car is scary indeed.
February 19, 2010
Dates and Locations For 2010 San Francisco Sunday Streets Announced
San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom has announced the dates and locations for nine Sunday Streets events for 2010, starting on March 14th along the Embarcadero and finishing October 24th around Civic Center. Building off the tremendous success of the events in 2009, Mayor Newsom announced the events will expand to new communities and run for an extra hour, eventually becoming a permanent San Francisco tradition.
December 19, 2009
NJ Editor Blames Anyone But Drivers for Pedestrian Deaths
Today on the Streetsblog Network, more windshield perspective from journalists, via WalkBike Jersey.
Andy B, the blog's author (and a frequent commenter on this site),
writes about an Atlantic City newspaper editor who has come up with a bizarre theory about who is responsible for the rising tide of pedestrian deaths in the Garden State.
December 17, 2009
In Search of a Better Pedestrian Realm for Broadway in Chinatown
The stretch of Broadway between Columbus Avenue and the Robert C. Levy tunnel is an unheralded segment of San Francisco's Chinatown: storefront after storefront of neighborhood shops and restaurants, with far fewer tourists than Grant Avenue or Stockton Street. But its streetscape, though lively with pedestrians during the day, maintains much the same look it had when the Embarcadero Freeway still touched down several blocks to the east, funneling cars through the neighborhood via Broadway's four lanes of traffic, as pedestrians squeeze onto 12-foot-wide sidewalks.
December 16, 2009